"History is a bath of blood. . . . Where then would be the steeps of life? If war had ever stopped, we should have to re-invent it, on this view, to redeem life from flat degeneration."
William James, The Moral Equivalent of War, as published in Popular Science, 1910
I don't know the motivations of the guy who "rolled coal," putting out black clouds of pollution.
Then, seconds later, this is what I could see.
There may have been joy in it. It was a primitive instinct, bourn out of the DNA of generations of survivors, as William James wrote. Humans fight wars. If they won, they sacked the city. They killed the males and took the women and land. The Old Testament said it was God's will. It was the story of the armies of the Greeks and Trojans, of Alexander, of Rome, and of the Vikings. It was Hitler's plan for Eastern Europe. The strong dominate the weak. It is the way of the world.
William James' essay presumed that the thrill of victory was an essential part of the human spirit. Winning and taking is what made life worth living. "Without risks or prizes for the darer, history would be insipid indeed." The driver of that truck could easily have been caught and fined -- but he got away this time. Maybe.
William James wrote that countries needed national purpose to give them cohesion and manly toughness. If not war, then some moral equivalent of it.
Trump taps into that martial spirit. He rallies crowds with talk of victory. It is every country for itself. Universal values are for wimps and losers. He projects that onto Democrats. He presumes that laws that have been in place for decades are being enforced against him as a partisan attack. Trump does not seek empire in Europe. He says to let Europe fight its own wars. Let Putin do as strong countries have always done. Trump's empire would be to the south, to people he considers weak, criminal, and dangerous. If Trump is Hitler, then Mexico is Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine.
Biden has a task. He needs to articulate a strong national purpose. I don't hear it yet from him. This election cannot be a won as a contest between a strong but crazy Trump versus constitutional order. It isn't enough. Americans don't value constitutionak order per se; they value it for the success it brings to America, if it brings success.
Articulating a narrative of national purpose is not Biden's strength, but I think he could do it. He can show it comes out of the wisdom of decades of experience. He is old enough to be selfless now, solely looking to the future -- a way to reposition age. Trump, too, is old enough, but he is the opposite of selfless. That is a point of distinction. Biden gets the better half of that divide, if he articulates it clearly.
There is a war to fight. Bring back American jobs. Build back heartland cities. Make America far more self-reliant in its critical supply chains and in energy. It is nationalistic rather than global. It is a moral equivalent of war.
Of course, Biden is already doing this, but it is not yet framed as a matter of wartime urgency or a response to fear. Fear that we are vulnerable. Fear that we need to catch up because we have fallen behind. John F. Kennedy campaigned on the fear of a "missile gap" with Russia. It didn't exist. That didn't matter. He is remembered for creating a mood that was strong and forward-looking in the face of danger. He said we are a nation that would do hard things because they were hard, like put a man on the moon in that decade.
I realize that Biden is an improbable JFK, but it is his job at this moment in history.
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21 comments:
It is illeagal, and apparently DEQ has a hotline number: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/verify/verify-is-rolling-coal-legal-in-oregon/283-028a1db8-7974-4134-8cce-a1364961a12a
Trump isn’t Hitler. At best/worst he’s Mussolini.
The U.S. is the world's biggest arms dealer and has engaged in numerous wars and skirmishes, so we have a lot of money invested in this status quo. However, we could have a national purpose that’s the antithesis of war. People of every major race and religion live here in relative peace and harmony, united by our commitment to liberty and justice for all. What greater purpose do we need?
Republicans undermine this unity by promoting paranoid conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement, Christian persecution, the Stolen Election, etc. That provides them their Moral Equivalent Of War, or MEOW. We need to remember, there’s no such thing as a moral equivalent because there’s nothing moral about it. War is an atrocity – just ask the people of Gaza.
Is it sometimes unavoidable? Perhaps, but most victims of it would agree that it should be an absolute last resort rather than resulting from the sort of vague excuses, lousy intelligence and hubris that led to WWI, Vietnam and Iraq.
There's nothing weak about peace. Real men help others rather than hurt them.
In 1971, I was a computer science grad student working as a teaching assistant. I was grading student work, and one student had inserted a joke* in the middle of his code, apparently to see if I was actually reading his code:
Lothar the barbarian said,
Men, let’s go into that village and burn all the houses, rape all the women, and kill all the men.
And men … get it right this time.
* Apologies to feminist/humanitarian sensibilities that were not widespread in 1971.
War is a horrible thing. But sometimes it’s necessary..
WW II was the strong protecting the weak. Eradicating Nazism and the Japanese empire was important and essential, and it took a war to do it.
And near 20 years in Afghanistan, before ceding that poor Country to the less than tender mercies of radically extremist Barbarians of the Taliban. And leaving behind untold numbers of people we had promised refuge to be hunted down and murdered by that same Taliban.
AnyvCountryvwhich relies on U.S. promises of aid are doomed to be disappointed, regardless if who made the promises, just ask the Kurds of Northern Iraq.
If war is America's national purpose, maybe young men are frustrated that America doesn't WIN wars anymore.
America is good at destroying countries, but actually winning a war? Last time would be restoring the emir of Kuwait to his solid gold throne in 1991.
Before that, WWII.
Hardly the stuff of heroic dreams for young men in 2024.
Biden is good at projecting benevolent old guy vibes, but that’s not what’s required in these angry, polarized, dangerous times.
Russia is rampaging in Ukraine, China threatens Taiwan, Iran is a worldwide jihadist threat, N. Korea periodically rattles its nuclear saber, and an uncontrolled flood of God knows who is crossing our southern border.
Biden is currently running behind Trump in the polls. A successful Trump opponent would need stronger, angrier, more assertive vibes than Grandpa Joe seems to be capable of.
During Biden’s catastrophically botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, we abandoned many Afghanis who had worked with us against the Taliban.
Joe Biden’s ratings took a decisive hit at that time, and they have been negative ever since. The American people are not forgiving of that level of incompetence and dishonor.
Trump's surrender to terrorists.
I fixed it for you.
The US has spent trillions on national defense and security, yet the House is, and our previous former POTUS was, controlled by our adversaries.
That’s right: Biden is too benevolent. What these angry, polarized, dangerous times call for is someone stronger, angrier and more assertive. Republicans have just the guy: Putin helped put him in office once already where he “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un, alienated our allies, built a wall and made Mexico pay for it (not) and called a lot of people a lot of stupid names. As he said, “I am the only one that can save this nation.” L’état, c’est Trump.
Thanks, Mc. I'm curious as c to how Molitary Expert Trigoboff would have handled the exit from Afghanistan ,after inheriting the steaming platter of feces arranged for him by treacherous Oath Breaker Pompeo and the Taliban.
I don’t have that much military expertise, but I read a lot from people who do have that expertise.
There are a number of things that Biden could have done differently that might have not led to the disgraceful clusterf*** of his actual withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Pray tell, Michael T. What would your "experts" have done differently?
What we should have done differently is take out the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, then leave – not invade Iraq and remain in Afghanistan for 20 years. That was the real clusterfuck, not the withdrawal.
If we had withdrawn immediately, the Taliban would just have taken over again. The real clusterf*** was the careless and dishonorable way we withdrew.
The Afghanis who fought beside us for 20 years didn’t need much. But Biden denied them even that, just to make a political point. He abandoned those people to the Taliban. So much for loyalty and honor.
How many rounds of the stupid game are we going to play this time?
So, we stayed in Afghanistan for 20 years and the Taliban took over anyway, but since it happened a few months into Biden's term, it all on him...what a crock.
To Ed,
Continue maintenance support for their air force, for one.
I agree, but that would have interfered with hegemonic dreams of the Bush Family.
That determination to fight must have been why the Afghan "Army" and the government both abandoned Kabul just as the Taliban forces came in view.
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